Harry Hudson on Coachella 2018 and Paying Tribute to His Late Father

"The real answer or the not-so-real answer?" Harry Hudson asks, a counter to the standard festival greeting: How's your Coachella so far?

I want the real answer, and Harry gets right to it. "I'm just overwhelmed," he explains, adding that his anxiety has been triggered by the crowds. (Even just walking to the three-day festival is a feat, given that you're sharing the same path with around 100,000 other people.) As for how he deals when things begin feeling rough, he says it's a matter of knowing your limits. "Whenever you feel like you gotta get out, you get out," he says.

Make no mistake, however: the-24-year-old musician still wants you to stick around for the sets. "Just go and enjoy the music. Find who you actually want to see; you're not going to hit every single artist you want, but find the core people that actually inspire you and go to people that you actually enjoy," he advises to first-time festival goers. "This is the first big thing for lot of artists and it means a lot to do Coachella and perform. But if you're going to be seen and having it the way you want it to work, you're going to be miserable."

Outside, the DJ is blasting top 40 hits at the Lucky Brand Desert Jam. Harry is set to perform in a minute, but first, there's the matter of going deep. "I'm a guy for whom conversation has to be below the surface or we are all wasting our time," he says. "You're giving energy. Every time you have a conversation with somebody you're projecting an energy to somebody. If a lot of negative energy gets attached to me, then I start to be negative and that's the danger zone."

There's a lot for Harry to count as good energy right now; his first album, Yesterday's Tomorrow Night, debuted at the end of March. "It's surreal," he says of knowing that the project is out in the world for people to listen to. "It was like, the last four years of my life — one little 15-song project — but it feels like a relief. When I started that project, I was kind of going through this depression, and just trying to find this light place from this dark place. I'm excited to just release it and let that energy go."

His favorite song, he says, is a deeply personal one: "Love, Dad," a piano-driven ballad that slows the tempo-down about two-thirds of the way through the album. (It's meant to be listened to all the way through, he explains.) "My dad just passed away so that record is... I feel like I channeled him," Harry notes. "I think that's my favorite song on the record right now but I think every single one is meaningful 'cause you can open up my journal and you could be like 'oh, OK, now I get what this song is about.' You see where I come from."

And Harry's music isn't the only way he's paying tribute to his late father. His collaboration with Lucky Brand is almost serendipitous — the first time he met with the team he just so happened to be wearing a piece from the designer that turned out to be, you guessed it, Lucky. "I remember wearing this jacket at one of these performances that I did, right after he passed. I never checked the brand names; I just go with the energy of what's going on in life. It was just so weird that I had never worn Lucky and now it's a part of my life. It feels like I'm around people that my dad would want me to be around," he says.

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As for what's next for Harry, he's already got his eyes on the future. That includes shows at the Troubadour in Los Angeles and Rough Trade in New York, as well as getting back in the studio. He's already in the writing stages for a second album, too. His aim is simple: "I'm just planning to release music and tour for the rest of my life."